As prices of digital cameras fall and image quality improves, more consumers will use digital cameras to fill their image capturing needs. Digital cameras offer many benefits. However, they also present some difficulties. In particular, obtaining high quality prints from digital cameras is not an easy task for most consumers.
As described in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/977,382, filed Nov. 24, 1997 by Kenneth A. Parulski et al., entitled “Electronic Camera With ‘Utilization’ Selection Capability”, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference, a digital camera can be used to review images and select images to be printed or emailed to others. The camera creates a control file such as a print order file, which indicates which images are to be printed and how many copies of each image to print, or an email order file, which indicates which image files to email, as well as email addresses of the recipients.
One standard type of control file is the DPOF (digital print order format) file supported by many digital cameras. Another type of control file is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,171 to Haneda. This patent describes a control file that can be used to specify various types of digital prints, typically made by first scanning photographic film.
There are many methods for printing images from electronic cameras. Image files may be transferred to a computer via physically transferring a memory card or by a data link between the computer and the camera. Once the image resides in the memory of the computer, a computer program can be used to print the images on a local printer. Also, a computer may use a modem to transfer images over the phone lines or other communication network to a remote photofinisher, where the images can be printed. While the foregoing methods can be used to obtain prints from the digital image files, they often involve complex and/or repetitive user tasks.
Another method of getting hard copy prints from digital image files captured by an electronic digital camera is to transfer the digital image files directly to a printer, via transferring a memory card or by a data link between the printer and the camera. In this approach, the user can select images to be printed as they review images using an image display on the camera, and the camera can then create a DPOF file listing the images to be printed, which is read by the printer.
Digital images may also be printed at a retail kiosk. In this case, the digital image files are transferred from the camera to the kiosk by physically transferring the memory card, or by transferring the digital image files using a data link between the kiosk and camera. In order to minimize the time spent selecting images at the kiosk, the user may select images to be printed on the camera, and the camera may create a DPOF file, which is read by the kiosk.
A user of a digital camera may create a DPOF file, but then decide to print images using a standard PC to initiate printing either locally or via a network photo service provider. Unfortunately, current systems do not provide an easy way for a user to initiate such printing at a later time.